The End and Beginning of Decades of Inequalities
On the 16th of May 1969, the King of Malaysia, established a Proclamation of Emergency. This was done following the aftermath of the 13th May Incident which was caused by provocation of violence between the Malays and the Chinese after the results of the 1969 Malaysian General Election (the Opposition party won 54 seats, causing the Alliance Party and the United Malays National Organisation to lose their two-thirds majority).
Hostility between races was not something entirely new at the time. The political impacts of the 13th May incident to the society, however, were too serious to not be ignored by the government. To the Malay community, the election results symbolised a loosening grip from power and a potentially dangerous enemy to their country.
Did You Know?
Did you know there existed a multi-racial coalition comprising a broad base of left-wing parties, youth and women’s groups, and trade unions in Malaysia? Read more here.
Mahathir Mohamad, a then relatively unknown politician who lost his seat in the elections, had laid the blame for the conflict on Prime Minister Tunku Abdul Rahman for his simplistic approach in planning for a prosperous Malaysia. He critiqued Tunku Abdul Rahman’s laissez-faire approach and overreliance on free market capitalism, which had allowed the economically dominant Chinese to thrive while leaving the Malays behind.
Mahathir’s arguments were laid down in his book, The Malay Dilemma, where he then proposed a solution to the racial tensions: affirmative action policies that would aid the Bumiputera economically.
As a result of Mahathir’s proposal, in 1971, the new Prime Minister Tun Abdul Razak presented the New Economic Policy (NEP). The NEP spanned from 1971 to 1990 and consisted of a two-pronged approach – to eradicate poverty and, more infamously, to restructure society by eliminating the identification of race with economic function. What the latter masked was affirmative action policies (AAP) for the Bumiputera.
In principle, policymaking is not only an economic or political tool but also a philosophical and moral effort. By analysing affirmative action policies through moral perspectives, we are able to determine whether they still align with the principles of fairness, justice and overall societal well-being, or if they have instead created new forms of inequality.
Affirmative Action Policies From a Utilitarian Perspective
The doctrine of Utilitarianism was popularised by Jeremy Bentham in the early 18th century. Bentham believed that utility was quantifiable. Any actions or policies would be able to have its utility measured through utility units. Therefore any optimal action could be chosen by comparing it with other actions and weighing their utility against each other.
Bentham believed that any action should maximise the greatest utility for the greatest number of people even if it meant sacrificing some individuals.
Applying to Affirmative Action policies in Malaysia, the status quo of AAP is that a plethora of its policies focuses and benefits the 70% of Malaysians, who make up the Bumiputera majority. Amongst these policies are in education where public universities prioritise Bumiputera students through racial quotas, whether for admission spots or scholarships and financial aid.
Overall, these policies increase the utility for only the Bumiputera majority and disfavor the Chinese, Indians and other minorities. After more than half a century of AAP in Malaysia, its long-term consequences are being felt as more and more Chinese, Indians and other minorities are in disutility due to AAP’s prioritisation of race over merit.
To assess this further in the framework of utilitarianism, 70% of the Malaysian population (the Bumiputera majority) experiences this utility but the remaining 30% (non-Bumiputera) are in disutility. A conceptual estimate of the net utility of this status quo could be considered.
Hypothetically, while the 70% of the population benefits and experiences utility, the cumulative disutility from the other 30% could be large enough to reduce the overall net utility to around positive 40%.
In contrast, a class-based system, where policies are enacted to help all disadvantaged people regardless of race, could generate more net utility as it maximises the happiness across all groups with fewer experiencing harm rather than benefiting only one racial majority.
Read more about other moral philosophers' views here.
Justice and Fairness in a Multiethnic Nation
Bentham’s utilitarianism offers us an insightful perspective to understand why AAP was ineffective in establishing a maximally happy Malaysia. So how should we think about the next steps in bringing justice to the country?
John Rawls’s A Theory of Justice had tried to answer this very question. In order to do so, he established that we must put ourselves behind a ‘Veil of Ignorance.’ In other words, we must imagine ourselves not knowing our place in society. We cannot know our class position or social status. We cannot know if we are going to be rich or what skills, abilities, intelligence or strengths we might have in the world.
As Rawls had put it: “A just society is a society that if you knew everything about it, you’d be willing to enter it in a random place.”
John Rawls, A Theory of Justice
Imagine it this way, say you have to cut a cake between yourself and three other strangers. The rules are, however, once you have cut it up, you don’t know which slice of the cake you’ll receive. How would you cut the cake? You wouldn’t cut the cake into 3 small slices and 1 large slice because that would mean you have three-quarters of a chance to get the smallest piece.
A fair and just answer, according to Rawls, would be to cut the cake into 4 equal sized pieces. That way, no matter which slice you get in the end, you’ll have the same amount of cake as everyone else.
Putting myself, a common Malaysian, behind this veil, I imagine a Malaysia which uses class-based policies in order to foster economic welfare among all races. No prioritization is given to any race; instead, aid is given to those who need it most, regardless of their ethnic background. Resources are allocated depending on socio-economic conditions, ensuring that the most vulnerable Malaysians, be it Malay, Chinese, Indian or other indigenous communities, receive equitable support.
In such a world, merit and effort would play a more significant role in determining opportunities and lay a more competitive landscape. By addressing the inequality in Malaysia at its actual roots and not through race, it reduces tensions among ethnic groups and builds a more united Malaysia.
Has AAP Outlived Its Purpose?
In the same book, Rawls also coined the idea of the difference principle. In short, this theory says that any inequality, as an effect of policy, should be positioned so that the least advantaged benefit the most from the inequality. Rawls defines the least advantaged as “those belonging to the lowest income class with the least expectations.”
1970’s Malaysia could be seen following this principle as the inequality caused by AAP, the neglect of minority races, is offset by the prioritisation of the Malays, the least well off citizens at the time. The question now, however, is if the same could still be said for modern day Malaysia.
Are the Bumiputera still considered the only ones least well off in current society after over 50 years of AAP?
Growing unrest from the minorities proves that their least well off are facing the negative impacts of AAP. There is no doubt that it has already worked for the Bumiputera, so should they still be the only ones receiving these benefits?
Malaysia’s Gini Coefficients–a statistic that measures how wealth is unequally distributed within a group of people, 0 being perfect equality and 1 perfect inequality–within races (0.387, 0.412 and 0.406 for the Bumiputera, Chinese and Indians respectively) show that inequality is more rampant in minority ethnicities than among the Bumiputera. If this disparity continues, it could deepen Malaysia’s socio-economic divide. Thus, I believe that abolishing AAP is a necessary step to lay down the foundations of a more equal and just Malaysia.
Ultimately, how we classify Malaysia’s economic stratification shouldn’t be according to race. Each race will have their own groups of people living beneath the median income. The AAP only doubles down inequality as the poor in minority races suffer even more due to the effects of AAP. Putting a blind eye to race would allow Malaysia to classify the poor in Malaysia in one group. Policies could thus not discriminate between races and become even fairer.
So while it is true that AAP’s implementation in the 1970’s was in line with the difference principle, contemporary Malaysia, already facing both the intended and negative impacts of AAP, would need a revamp to keep in line with the difference principle by not discriminating against minorities.
I believe that AAP is becoming redundant in Malaysia day by day and it is only a matter of time before reforms can become a reality. Every Malaysian yearns for unity, but I believe this unity will only exist if policies see everyone equally, no matter the ethnicity. It is absurd that contemporary racial conflict is being caused by a short-term solution made over half a century ago. Sure, the idea of race cannot be erased overnight, but the necessary, gradual steps should be taken to do so.